Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?

[Carolab]

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1502

If some of its key publications are any indicator, much of the American left seems unable to face the reality that the election of 2004 was stolen. So in all likelihood, unless something radical is done, 2008 will be too.

Misguided and misinformed articles in both TomPaine.com and Mother Jones Magazine indicate a dangerous inability to face the reality that these stolen elections mean nothing less than the death of what's left of American democracy, and the permanent enthronement of the Rovian GOP.

As investigative reporters based in Columbus, Ohio, we witnessed first-hand, up close and personal, exactly how the 2004 election was stolen, and how it will most likely be done in 2008. In the precinct in which Harvey Wasserman grew up, and in the one where Bob Fitrakis now lives, we saw the well-funded, profoundly cynical and deadly effective mechanisms by which the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Blackwell GOP machine switched a victory for John Kerry to an easily-repeatable defeat for democracy.

{snip}

[Pooka Fey]

1. It ain't just a river in Egypt....great article.

[kster]

2. Kick-n-Recommended..nt

[Old and In the Way]

3. Any ideas how Nye's indictment might pry this open?

I gotta think that dirty money was tied to the stolen election. If they can turn Nye, it could blow the whole story wide open....I hope.

[autorank]

4. The same people who fall for the 'cult of personality,' we'll be saved!

...by Hillary, by Wes, by Howard, by anybody who passes by with the right message or the possibility of being elected.

What a joke, we are the people we've been waiting for. Citizens need to take control of voting and elections, not Diebold or Boards of Elections.

Votes that go into a computer, are tabulated by the vendors owning the computers, and reported by the same groups are NOT REAL VOTES. We can see them, we can count them, it's "proprietary" (although Diebold, I'm positive, shared ATM code with banks...afterall, that's money).

Don't wait for the Calvary to come and rescue you, or some politician. They are not the custodians of democracy, we are.

Screw leaders, up with the people. Lets take back our elections.

Paper, hand counts, machines to accommodate those in need. All public, all open, all capable of an audit.

[kster]

6. Yes and in the words of "Landshark"

"Note that these values will be almost universally agreed to. In contrast, HCPB can "feel" like a "throwback". It's not a throwback because what HCPB really is, properly configured, is a highly advanced and secure system of checks and balances for constitutionally democratic elections. THAT'S WHAT I'M FOR".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=398460&mesg_id=398613


I'm Kster and I approve of this message.

[autorank]

7. (((LOL))) I appove too!

[janedoe]

5. If they acknowledge a problem...

they may feel compelled to do something about it.

[kster]

8. One more recommend this thread goes to greatest any

takers?

[MelissaB]

9. Me! I'm honored.

:hi:

[Angry Girl]

10. kicked and rec'd

[EFerrari]

11. kick

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. fact check

Last January, Baker penned an absurd, ill-reported piece of nonsense called "What Didn't Happen in Ohio." Baker traipsed into Columbus for a few days, interviewed the usual faux Democrats, and left with a Big Story: "The Election Was Fair."

(1) Baker's January article was "Election 2004: Stolen Or Lost." "What Didn't Happen in Ohio" appeared in May. Way to check sources, guys!

(2) The word "fair" doesn't appear in either article, except for a reference to Vanity Fair in the May article. Reading an article by two experienced journalists, one might assume that the quotation marks imply, y'know, a quotation -- but they just made this one up.

(3) In his January story, Baker indicates that he spoke repeatedly with one of the lawyers challenging the Ohio results; he also spoke with the Trumbull County Board of Elections, and most likely with other sources. The notion (or innuendo) that he wrote the story relying on "the usual faux Democrats" isn't supported by the text.

Then there's the song and dance from Warren Mitofsky. The father of exit polls saw his work used to overturn a stolen election in Ukraine just prior to the American vote.

(4) Uh, dudes? dudes? The first runoff in Ukraine, the one that was overturned, was on, umm, November 21. (The first round of voting was indeed shortly before the American vote, but that one wasn't overturned.)

(5) The Ukraine election was overturned on the basis of direct evidence of fraud; the exit polls (which, by the way, weren't Mitofsky's "work" -- or does that expression now apply to every exit poll until the end of time?) played at most a bit role.

I haven't read the Mother Jones article yet, so I will stop there -- but when I get to (5), I generally stop anyway. Is Fitrakis always this sloppy, or was he just in a really bad mood?

[Fly by night]

13. Agreed. It's embarrassing how poorly researched the TomPaine and MJ ...

... articles were, and how unwilling the editors of those journals were to hear from people (like us) who've actually paid attention.

Like some leftists at the personal level, it is easier for some of these self-appointed investigative journalists to be critical (even of their own) than to be constructive and engaged. Or to actually get off their asses and do something. Here in Tennessee, we have gotten many more people to show up for protests than we have gotten to show up at state and local election commissions to do the "hard work" to turn this situation around. Why is that ("summer soldiers", anyone?)

Thank Higher Power for Bob Koehler, for Vanity Fair and Harper's. We do have some competent and committed small "d" democrats in the media on our side. The rest of them can go into the recycle bin, or straight to hell.

[Helga Scow Stern]

14. The rest of them can go into the recycle bin, or straight to hell.

I couldn't agree more.

[OnTheOtherHand]

18. now, hang on there

I'm probably the wrong person to try to vouch for Mark Hertsgaard, the author of On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency. But even if you think that he is being persuaded by the wrong arguments, then I think he has earned the right to have his judgment taken seriously. Yes, he is a "self-appointed investigative journalist()," and a damn fine one. And now that I've read his article, I think it's a lot better than Fitrakis and Wasserman's. So sue me (grin).

No, better yet, convince me -- or we can agree to disagree. And, in a separate thread, we can haggle about how much more Hertsgaard, or I, should be doing for the movement. But in a discussion of evidence about specific forms of election fraud, I just think it's off topic, isn't it?

[Time for change]

21. Here is my response to the Mother Jones article

I hope you find this convincing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5129040

[OnTheOtherHand]

24. well, I find it characteristically thoughtful and careful

(except for the misspelling of the author). However....

This is one of those see-saw issues. If your frame of reference is that the MSM isn't taking the election issues nearly seriously enough, Hertsgaard is part of the problem. If your frame of reference is that a lot of people wildly overstate some of the evidence for fraud, Hertsgaard is part of the solution. But I think both those statements are true, so how I react to any particular paragraph will probably depend on my mood. But I agree with his conclusion.

Sherole Eaton's affidavit comes nowhere near proving vote fraud in Hocking County. I think the Wired story probably got this pretty much right:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,66072,00.html
I don't think Hertsgaard "dismisses" the story, but I think he points to how little it proves. Your analogy about metaphor is IMHO way off target; Hertsgaard's point is that Eaton's phrase "cheat sheet" has been widely depicted as (1) a direct quotation and (2) evidence of vote tampering, but it was neither. It was definitely at least a security breach.

(More broadly, the recount was compromised, but I'm not at all convinced that there was a broad conspiracy to cover up vote fraud. As far as I can tell most Ohio Democratic politicos aren't convinced of that either, which is why Fitrakis and Wasserman are rather broadly portraying them as DINOs.)

In Warren County -- well, Hertsgaard talked with both the Republican director and the Democratic deputy director, who apparently agree that a total of eight people, four from each major party, observed the count. If all these folks were part of a conspiracy to goose Bush's vote percentage by 2 points, would it have mattered if they had let a reporter into the room? I agree the lockdown story is weird, but it seems that a crank call to the emergency services director would account for it.

Miami County -- as we've discussed, Miami's final official turnout was run-of-the-mill, which tends to buttress the webmaster's account of the late votes. Those two Concord precincts are weird, but it is worth noting that (1) there are only two of them, accounting possibly for a few hundred "extra" votes, and (2) the Conyers report stated that "in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent" (p. 6, practically the same wording on p. 58) -- a misstatement that poor Paul Krugman wrote into his column and then had to retract. Incidentally, there is a third Concord precinct with weirdly _low_ turnout (in 2004) and similar partisanship (both 2002 and 2004).

Mahoning -- my big problem here is that I haven't found any propensity anywhere for Bush to do markedly better on DREs than any other technology. Kerry's support may have been a bit soft in Mahoning, but he still added some 5K votes over Gore's margin (in a county with about 132K votes total). So if there was fraud, it was subtle. "Well, of course it was subtle! these people are masters of deception!" Then why do I keep hearing that it's obvious that the election was stolen?

Purge of 133,000 registered voters -- he "claims that this was legal" and "doesn't even bother to quote an election official" -- well, he quotes Fitrakis. There may have been other, illegal purges, but unless you know otherwise, I think we can stipulate that Fitrakis hasn't understated his own case with respect to those 133,000.

Hertsgaard concludes, "Yet it remains far from clear that Bush stole the election, and I say that as someone who has written that Bush did steal Florida and the White House in 2000.... (T)he skeptics' position is weakened by the one-sidedness of their arguments and their know-it-all tone. They have a plausible case to make, but they act like it's a slam dunk and imply that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either stupid, bought, or on the other side -- not the best way to win people over." Well, present company excepted, I have to say that is absolutely true -- not of every skeptic, but of far too many skeptics too much of the time. Too many howlers and too much howling.

[Land Shark]

25. So why howl for the other side?

OTOH Wrote: So if there was fraud, it was subtle.

LandShark responds: Or widespread. How did you eliminate this possibility forensically before making the above statement?

OTOH wrote: If all these folks were part of a conspiracy to goose Bush's vote percentage by 2 points, would it have mattered if they had let a reporter into the room? I agree the lockdown story is weird, but it seems that a crank call to the emergency services director would account for it.

LandShark responds: Of course a conspiracy being an agreement requires some communications so a reporter would be a deterrent, albeit not necessarily a perfect one. People watching each other like hawks (and being truly opposed and about equal in power and knowledge) is the basis of a much more secure system. Anyway, it doesn't take a "conspiracy" or much of any coordination because every republican or democrat knows the who what when where and why. People in recount rooms even know some election law so they are especially able to know (without instruction or "conspiracy") how to game the system if they want to. Using the "conspiracy" accusation functions simply to try to shut down debate by casting aspersions and isn't likely to fit the facts here.

OTOH wrote: More broadly, the recount was compromised, but I'm not at all convinced that there was a broad conspiracy to cover up vote fraud.

LandShark responds: What conspiracy is needed?? None. Are you engaged in a "conspiracy" OTOH with your spouse (assuming you have one) to cover your ass in the morning? With pants, slacks or whatever? If you are, then I suppose election officials need a conspiracy to know how to cover their ass, too. Seems like a reflex with most people, to me. Who wants headlines like that?

OTOH Wrote: Too many howlers and too much howling.

LandShark responds: so why tell howlers for the other side?

Can't believe OTOH wrote: So if there was fraud, it was subtle.

LANDSHARK RESPONDS: The perfect electronic fraud would look very much like a smooth election. Would it not?

[OnTheOtherHand]

28. hmm...

I don't see any contradiction between fraud being subtle and widespread. Maybe you could explain.

To the extent that people state explicit and specific fraud theories, it is possible to evaluate whether these entail conspiracies and of what form. Otherwise, if someone argues that the Warren County lockdown points to fraud, I am left to guess at all the intervening steps of the argument. In any case, the electoral system in Ohio is designed to work on the assumption that Democrats and Republicans will keep an eye on each other. If the Democrats and Republicans on the Warren County BoE were actually cooperating to miscount votes, then I would have thought the word "conspiracy" would be entirely appropriate.

I think we agree that election officials don't require a conspiracy in order to undertake minimal compliance with recounts. The salient question, I thought, was whether their resistance to full recounts counts as evidence that the election was stolen. If it is, then to me that suggests a conspiracy, whether you regard the word as aspersive or not. But if you prefer, you can reframe the sentence: I think the recount was compromised, but none of the stories I've heard from the recount influence my judgment that Bush probably got a majority of votes cast in Ohio.

The "perfect electronic fraud" would be undetectable, so there wouldn't be much point in discussing evidence. And yet Fitrakis cites point after point after point, all of which pointedly point to... umm, well, a lot of us aren't sure they point to much of anything.

Howling for the other side?

[Land Shark]

32. Secrecy, even when we protect it as legitimate privacy, protects unseemly

behavior usually, as well as behavior we would not be proud of if entirely open.

Marital privacy (protecting marital intimacy, sex, love, fights, etc.) Financial privacy (protecting asset levels, wealth, poverty, debts, etc)

Even when seemingly positive, the secrecy has to gain value from the secrecy itself (secrecy in investigation of a crime may assist in identifying a perpetrator)

I don't see the point in any Ohio count or recount secrecy at all. Has to be protecting something unseemly. I think that's a good American instinct and rational inference.

[OnTheOtherHand]

38. we're talking about Warren?

Hey, if the BoE was trying to cover up something there, let's pry the lid off and see what it is. And/or if the emergency services director invented the call for some reason, let's indict him like we just indicted Libby. I have no problem with that.

[Febble]

39. To me

the best indicator that something deliberately evil was going on is the behaviour of officials in Ohio, from before the election, from Blackwell downwards.

It's definitely smoke, if not a smoking gun. The question is - if the smoke is coming from a fire, where is the fire?

I'm still bothered by the concept "perfect electronic fraud". As far as I can tell, best way of making the crime perfect, is, as you suggested, making it as diverse as possible - salami slice all over the place, making sure that any one slice is under the statistical radar (and other radar).

The trouble is that unlike one kind perfect murder, where you have a body and no evidence, it's the kind of perfect murder where you evidence but no body. But if there WAS a crime, there will be a body somewhere. If the crime (perfect electronic fraud) didn't result in a body, we won't find a body, and there won't be a crime (though there could have been another crime)

If you are going to steal a large number of votes electronically, the result will be a large number of stolen votes. Hiding them from the exit polls will be tricky. Fraud and polling bias may be indistinguishable in terms of exit poll red-shift, but one results in more votes for Bush and the other doesn't. And so far, our efforts to determine whether red-shift was associated with more votes for Bush (three efforts to my knowledge) have, IMO, come up negative (I say IMO, because Ron Baiman begs to differ on one result - but my view is that he is wrong).

The three are: red-shift not associated with greater swing relative to 2000; red-shift not associated with higher Bush proportions in precinct; red-shift not associated with deviation to Bush relative to pre-election polls (ask OTOH).

So it may be that the way that the "perfect electronic fraud" was executed was by making sure that it was used extremely sparingly, and bolstered by many, many other tactics, as diverse as possible. Which would create rather more need for the kinds of smokescreen that we saw in Ohio.

[OnTheOtherHand]

40. BTW, of course something evil was going on before the election

One reason I am angry at Fitrakis and Wasserman for paraphrasing (or pseudo-quoting) Russ Baker's position as "The Election Was Fair" is that, as you know, we aren't faced with a choice between a "fair" election and, say, a decisive Kerry victory in the popular vote. There are many shades of knowledge and possibility here, and we can assess them without declaring "sides."

[Land Shark]

41. LandShark submits a perfect crime would include making exit polls

totally obscure in some way, shape or form. False trail going nowhere.

[Febble]

43. Well, it's the way, shape or form

I'm struggling with, if votes were switched.

Closest so far is Bill Bored's idea of targetting precincts with high levels of new Dem registrations.

[Fly by night]

47. " ... if there WAS a crime, there will be a body somewhere...."

After watching Ohio from a distance for the past year, I believe that there is a body (or bodies) in many Ohio counties and the overwhelming stench they are putting out (coupled with the clumsy attempts to keep them buried, with the passive assistance of blustery but bamboozled Buckeye Dems) are why this issue continues to have traction.

Specifically, I believe that if recounts (in OH counties where recounts are possible because paper ballots were used) were EVER conducted using the Ohio rules for recounts, we would find abundant evidence of election fraud. That would extend from the 2004 election right through the OH-2 special election. It has been widely reported that only ONE Ohio county actually followed the recount rules and a number (at least hundreds) of miscounted ballots were found in that county. (I hope an Ohioan reading this thread can confirm this.)

In addition, it goes without saying that no one in Ohio has been able to examine the "belly of the voting machines" (a particularly bluesy phrase in our Tennessee lawsuit) to determine whether those should-be-simple adding machines (for which $thousands$ apiece were paid) also came equipped with subtraction functions. We already know that some of them (both Diebold and ES&S equipment) came equipped with wireless remote reprogramming capability. What on earth would justify that "feature"?

So I submit that there is still ample evidence in Ohio (and New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Tennessee and many other states) to demonstrate conclusively that fraud occurred. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until 2006 to issue the subpoenas to examine that evidence.

Two final questions:

1) What are the statutes of limitations on election fraud and treason?

2) How much will Democratic candidates have to be leading by going into the 2006 elections before another "clean sweep" of Rethugligan victories causes our ample-assed Democratic voters (and democracy-loving Americans of other political persuasions) to get up, stand up, show up, speak up and refuse to shut up (or, if silenced again, to start sighting in) -- until we have free, fair and verifiable elections again?

[Febble]

48. I agree

and I can't answer your good questions.

I think there are lots of bodies. My point is a small (but potentially important) one - that electronic vote-switching "bodies" ought to show up in the exit polls, and so far, either they are well hidden, or they aren't there.

But that doesn't mean that lots of other bodies aren't all over the place. And it doesn't even mean that vote-switching bodies aren't hidden - I just can't figure out quite where yet.

To get out of the metaphor: I think that vote-switching fraud of the type people have inferred from the exit poll evidence is actually contra-indicated by the exit poll evidence when looked at more closely. And I think it would be difficult to make vote-switching the "perfect crime" because you can't switch votes without, well, switching votes. And switched votes ought to show up unless they have been very carefully targetted in precincts with particular characteristics, which we haven't quite worked out yet. But that doesn't mean that no vote-switching happened, nor that other forms of fraud didn't happen (I think they did).

The places I'd look for bodies are Democratic precincts in swing states with abnormally large numbers of under/overvotes/rejected provisional ballots - also anywhere where attempts appear to have been made to stop the election being properly audited.

[Land Shark]

51. Hope Febble's new book is entitled "Where the Bodies are Buried"

[Carolab]

61. Yes to this.

"The places I'd look for bodies are Democratic precincts in swing states with abnormally large numbers of under/overvotes/rejected provisional ballots - also anywhere where attempts appear to have been made to stop the election being properly audited."

And also, in precincts where there are strange and unexplained third-party shifts--especially where those shifts were "corrected" later...and the third-party totals changed.

[Fly by night]

49. Evidence for wireless capability in vote-counting equipment

Someone just PMed me to ask what my sources are for saying that vote-counting equipment comes equipped with wireless communication capability. Here's my answer:

Two sources:

1) At a county-level display of ES&S optical scan equipment in Tennessee, I asked the ES&S salesperson to show me how the opti-scan was programmed. He pulled the front of the opti-scan down to show me the slot where the programming chip would be inserted (which I expected.) But I could also see the modem port, so I asked him if it could be programmed other ways. He said yes, through the modem port and through the wireless feature in the machine (which of course was not visible.) I confirmed what he had said-- that the ES&S opti-scans come equipped with wireless communication capabilities.

2) At the next meeting for the State Election Commission (we now attend those monthly meetings), I mentioned what I had learned to the State Election Commissioners, who were stunned. One of them turned to our state Coordinator of Elections to ask whether that was true. He said (meekly) yes, he was aware that this function existed in equipment used to count votes in Tennessee in 2004. When I asked him what would justify that function, he (again meekly) said it would allow for more rapid reporting of election results. When I asked him "to who?", "faster than to county and state election offices?" and "why would you need two-way wireless communication capability?", he had no answers to those questions.

I would also recommend that you communicate with Clint Curtis (who would likely know) and Warren Linney (who spoke briefly about wireless capability in vote-counting equipment at the Portland conference).

I also wonder at the method of access to the Diebold tabulator, with the new revelations about its backdoor programming capability.

[Time for change]

35. If Hertsgaard had simply said what you describe in the last paragraph

that would be one thing, and it would be hard (but not impossible) to argue with. If he doesn't believe that Bush won the election through fraud, then ok.

But he repeatedly quotes election or voting company officials as the last word with respect to several individual points. That's what I most object to.

Take Warren County, for example. You agree that it's weird that they locked the doors and claimed a national security alert that didn't exist (and I understand that that is a felony as well). Well, it's not only weird, but it's unexplained, and I don't think that the fact that 8 people including 4 "Democrats" were in there goes very far in explaining. And yes, I believe that whatever they did in there could not have been done in the presence of a reporter whose loyalty they couldn't count on.

[OnTheOtherHand]

37. well, I see what you mean

although literally the pattern doesn't seem very strong, unless you count the Democratic legal counsel as an election official. He gives the Conyers report the last word on Hocking, Fitrakis the last word on Warren, hard to say who the last word on exit polls, O'Grady the last word on Connally and the Blackwell purge.

I think the Conyers report's claim that Triad "essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide 'cheat sheets' to those counting the ballots" stuck in Hertsgaard's craw, so he gave Triad an opportunity to state its position. And then the fact that he put that denial in a prominent place stuck in your craw. I would like to know what Hertsgaard actually concluded about the 'cheat sheets' -- I really can't tell from the article (and I'm sure he wasn't given free rein to write as long as he wanted).

One year out, no one seems to have made the least bit of progress on the Warren County story. So far, the story boils down to "reporter denied access to vote count," which seems pretty "dog bites man" to me. Now, say, if someone has evidence that the 4 "'Democrats'" who watched the vote counts weren't actually Democrats, that would be more interesting.

[Land Shark]

42. Yeah it hurts me so bad when secret vote counters like Triad fail to get

the last word in a progressive publication, when they're point of view has dominated MSM and/or their wish for a non-story has. So unfair!!! :nopity:

Even without getting into the DINO issue regarding the 4 claimed Democrats, any guesses otoh as to who possesses the tiebreaking vote in the event of a 4-4 tie? it blows my mind that people recite, without qualification or thought, this idea that the PARTICULAR Ohio system offers protections. What's the point in a useless protest when everyone knows damn well what the result would be? That little procedural tiebreaker by Blackwell is a sleeping pill for the officials involved. Going nowhere, ever......

But assuming we had a legitimately balanced system, are these 4 "Democrats" going to admit on what may be national television that they were fooled and went along with an illegally closed voting procedure, thus getting their lives interrupted with months of media controversy and possibly criminal charges for complicity in going along with an illegal procedure? Or are they gonna think that "aw, there was nuthin' "?

[OnTheOtherHand]

52. begging your pardon...

Triad didn't get the last word in the article.

AFAIK we don't have an iota of evidence that any tie-breaking votes were cast in Warren County.

Nor AFAIK do we have an iota of evidence that the Democratic Deputy Director of the Warren County BoE, the two Democratic board members, and/or the Democratic observer in any way merit scare quotes around their party affiliations.

I don't mind entertaining hypotheticals now and then, but I am not going to hand them my credit card.

When Mother Jones becomes the enemy, I say it's time for a bit of introspection. But that would be your call, not mine.

[Land Shark]

53. AFAIK you're misunderstanding my post

I do business planning as a lawyer, you never set up even numbered director type situations even with a tiebreaker without advising the client that the tiebreaker essentially rules the entire show. Noncontroversial votes that are bipartisan don't matter, but if it's partisan then Blackwell always wins, so long as party loyalty can be preserved (which it surely would be in Kerry v. Bush)

Mother Jones is not the enemy, just doesn't know the contours of the whole terrain and thus publishes and unfortunately positioned piece.

Mother Jones is being careful though, and that's pathetic and a departure from their own standards. But that doesn't make them an enemy. If they do become an enemy, I'll let you know.

BTW Mother Jones is nonpartisan, though I recognize that their editors are usually progressive and that publishing detailed, context-laden investigations that tend to consider less popular points of view is inherently slanted toward the progressive in most cases. So, there's no inherent reason to expect MJ to be an always solid progressive voice 100% of the time.

[OnTheOtherHand]

54. sorry, I'm covering multiple topics, so we can lose each other

I don't know whether at some point I gave the impression that I thought the Ohio system was foolproof. We know that a partisan SoS (in this case an extraordinarily partisan SoS) has a lot of power within it. Many examples that we both know, such as his (AFAICT) egregious delay in certifying the results in order to stymie a recount.

"Mother Jones is being careful though, and that's pathetic and a departure from their own standards."

This tempts me to a rhetorical flight. ;) Me, I'm still pretty upset that Fitrakis and Wasserman weren't careful at all in their article. It's a professional hazard that I get really frustrated with information sources I can't trust -- which, of course, is why the Bush administration just horrifies me. Of course other presidents have lied, but this group has practically declared war on reality.

But I'm using "careful" in a different sense than you are, I think.

[Land Shark]

55. My sense of "careful" is not saying what appears justified on account

of a fear of the consequences from some "authority" or more powerful entity. Fear of pissing someone off, in other words.

Or even, being careful out of fear of making an argument, or taking one made to its logical conclusion (without ad absurdum extensions). Fear that if one actually SAYS something, there's risk of criticism.

Careful, in the sense of violating the standard of "without fear or favor".

[OnTheOtherHand]

58. OK; I'm not convinced that Hertsgaard was being careful in that sense n/t

[mirandapriestly]

15. I heard Thomas Frank ,What's the Matter with Kansas? On NPR

a few nights ago. At first it was great, about how working class people support a party (GOP) who makes life WORSE for them, and how they are fooled into it. It was really burning me up, but then he got to the election and said nothing about election fraud and started quoting all these numbers on how many working class people chose GOP over Democratic, which I assume he got from the rigged "changed" exit polls and I had to stop listening because I felt myself being brainwashed into believing the Democrats lost both elections and there's nothing we can do about it. When in actuality DESPITE all the GOP dirty tricks and propaganda, the democrats STILL won both elections. My tin foil even starts activating and I wonder how much of this "analysis" on how we "lost" is propaganda. There is no way any one who is well read can deny that something was very wrong with 2004 and that in all probability Gore won 2000, so I wonder about the motivations of those on the left who won't recognized the stolen elections especially with the new GAO findings.

[salvorhardin]

16. Well...

First of all Frank is selling his book. Election fraud doesn't fit into the premise of the book so why should he mention it? It's not germaine to the show at hand and it doesn't help to sell books. Good old fashioned greed (or entrepreneurial spirit if you like) trumps tin foil once again.

Secondly, no matter what you believe about how skewed the election results were, no matter how much deceit and trickery were involved (and I think there was quite a bit), there comes a point where election fraud is unable to explain ALL the votes Bush got. Even if Diebold machines flipped twenty million votes, that still leaves a HUGE number of people who really did vote for the chimperor. And you've got to ask yourself, "Why?"

There's a complex confluence of factors from media consolidation, to rising numbers of fundamentalist Christians seeking theocracy by allying with the right and the right's ability to manipulate people based on their religion, fears and prejudices. These factors have to be understood and at least Frank gets people thinking and might help the left learn from some of their own mistakes.

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. hi, miranda

Have you read the new GAO report? Is there something in it that convinces you that the 2004 election was stolen?

I agree with Mark Hertsgaard: "it remains far from clear that Bush stole the (2004) election." I can't "recognize" what I don't believe. But I do agree with you (and with him) that something was very wrong with 2004.

salvorhardin made good points downthread. I don't know what numbers Tom Frank was quoting, but the "original" exit poll stated that Bush got 36% of union members' votes, and the adjusted exit poll said it was 38%. The original said Bush got 47% of the vote from people without a high school degree, and the adjusted said 49%. The original said Bush got 39% of the vote from people with family incomes of $15-30K/year, and the adjusted said 42%. A three-point swing makes the difference between President Bush and President Kerry, but it doesn't totally change the story.

[Land Shark]

23. OTOH, they've cracked your microscope, smeared mud on it

and you keep gazing through and remarking that things are far from "clear".

Perhaps you can't apply every single scientific law of proof where the assumptions of science (availability of data freely to inquirers) doesn't apply.

?

[Land Shark]

31. Pundits, exit pollers, and opinion-formers are the witch doctors of USA

they've got no data (ballots), they've got no information on methods (of counting ballots), all that exists are CONCLUSIONS (election results).

The exit pollers, pundits, and opinion-formers claim to be able to read the tea leaves of elections and tell us what they mean. Bullshit.

No rational basis for confidence in the results. Non-repeatable. Non-transparent. non-disclosed.

But why would the WITCH DOCTORS want to give up their positions when they've gotten so FAR bullshitting us with made up interpretations of elections and polls (which are also keeping their data and methods secret, like exit polls)?

[Febble]

45. Exit pollers have data on

counting methods.

But I agree that all you have is the exit poller's conclusions, not their analyses (with a couple of important exceptions).

As for "pundits and opinion-formers" - their opinions are only as good as their data and their analytical skill - which is not necessarily saying much.

So I also agree - there is no rational basis for confidence in the results. Moroever there IS a rational basis for concluding that many people who wanted to vote for Kerry were unable to do so.

[glitch]

17. What I've picked up - most are afraid if voters don't trust the system

they won't vote. So, instead of making the system trust-WORTHY, they just repeat trust the system! ad nauseum.

[Land Shark]

27. getting to the core of the illogic, thanks glitch

the rest of the illogic goes something like: "if we publish how the system can be compromised it will weaken the system"

Yeah, and if we publish the fact that door locks can be picked it will weaken those doorlock systems.

When information is outlawed, only outlaws have the information.

[glitch]

30. It's a weird logic all right. Very much deny the elephant in the living

room. So how is it going with you?

[Land Shark]

44. Sharks gotta keep swimming or they die.....

[PATRICK]

20. The Daily Howler?

I think Somerby mentioned the continued partial collaboration with the MSM myth machine as going back to its stance on trashing Dems, notably Gore, and thus enabling then allowing the election to be stolen. THEN instead of taking responsibility for its nearsighted failures it continued into the "blame the Dems for something or ideological impurity" mode.

Some would call it cover for being stubborn fools or the taint of being a wing of the establishment in some way, as is the terrible decline of the NYT. In flight from personal accountability truth is the first victim. Nor are they much alone. It seems anyone in the established party, media, or loitering in the adolescent corridors of power seems infatuated with an empty, now discredited mythos that simply deems the nitty gritty of actual voters and the voting mechanisms with disdain and irrelevance. Even with their jobs or credibility on the line. Even with everything imaginable at stake, they won't descend to the level of recognizing the gun aimed at their back, the dirt on their tux, the worthlessness of con men's IOU's and schmoozing assurances that flatter and puff egos into suckers who sell us all down the river.

The fact that DA's, attorneys, experts of all sorts, pols of untold experience, "news" folk with time and money and resources beyond belief, can't deal with crooks in their midst means the whole community has thrown up the barricades around the whole fetid dump and called it an "American Democracy Refuge". Few are immune to this clubbish protectionism and most of those are by definition outside wide circulation and internal influence on the whole not-so-superstructure.

And where do the Internet proletariat and new journalists go to find an uncorrupted national discussion, a forum, a champion, a spokesperson? We scrounge in that dump like hobos looking for a winning lottery ticket, meek and hopeful and wanting to be relieved of the burden of the remnants of truth and democracy- to be relieved by the same unadmitted failures or traitors because they are there, up there- in the Ultra Nadir of National Disgrace..

[Land Shark]

56. You make some interesting points Patrick

People have intense resistance to realizing the truths about their own country (having usually been proud and certainly trained to be proud of their country) as much or more than they have resistance to seeing truths about themselves. There's, among other things, an image to uphold, isn't there?

But

The shark swims around though, with the fleshmeat and blood hanging from his jaw, caring not for shark image or the pussyfooting caged underwater cameraman's idea of his "media" role in the exalted Fourth Estate. The sharks run around with contempt for the media cameras, but then know how to stimulate an upclose shot of a Great White flash attack, if needed to scare the nervous system behind the particular camera in question. Then the shark goes back to roaming the seas, freely carnivoring its way until another media circus is deemed useful.

Democracy, like the caged cameramen, is either dead, helpless or doomed to a limited caged existence unless there is the willingness to go out, meet the shark, and be ready for a fight, instead of being the shark's plaything or minor annoyance.

Democracy "jumps the shark" when people talk about defending but never actually do:

JUMP THE SHARK (from the slang dictionary urbandictionary.com)

a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity.

Origin of this phrase comes from a Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis. Thus was labeled the lowest point of the show.Cousin Oliver on Brady Bunch, Scrappy Doo.
Source: anonymous, Oct 21, 2003

"JUMPING THE SHARK" may seem like a bravery stunt of sorts, but it's really just an avoidance.

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. Absolutely agree - they can't face the fact that the elections were stolen

and they can't admit that electronic election fraud has been partly responsible for those and will continue to distort results until aggressive action is taken to stop it. They show no signs of considering taking real, urgent action against repeated electronic election fraud.

Why? I do suspect that part of the answer is corruption.

[Stevepol]

26. I think this thread gets to the heart of the matter. Unless the Democratic

candidates themselves are willing to challenge results that seem irrational or illogical given the demographics and other facts freely available, unless they DEMAND recounts and audits and state clearly the facts that are available, what hope is there for a fair election in the future? At some point, the losers have got to cry foul and cry it loud enough to DEMAND recounts. This is the only way these issues can be resolved. Just common sense tells you that when the vote is counted in secret by partisans of one side and when there's either no way to audit to see if the machine was actually counting correctly or there is no requirement that audits happen and therefore as a matter of fact they just aren't done, how can that even be called "democracy"? Why would the voting machine companies claim that a paper trail is actually a hindrance to a fair election, a fact that is so obviously false that it almost beggars description? And then these same companies go to great expense to produce videos that purport to show how a VVPT is not just unnecessary but an actual hindrance to democracy. This could not pass any smell test anywhere in the known universe.

My personal experience: In talking w/ a friend who voted Democratic and who liked Kerry a lot, I mentioned may of the facts about the GA 02 election and the 04 election, primarily the exit poll and vote count discrepancies, but many other facts as well. His response: If what you say is true, then why would Kerry not say anything about it? Why did he concede so readily? Why has he said nothing since than about even the possibility of fraud?

I couldn't answer him.

I still can't.

[Land Shark]

46. Because we necessarily START OUT with an inscrutable system

and unaccountable system, because of ballot secrecy, and because of other factors on top of that, very powerful forces of denial will have a host of experts willing to pimp for them. Inscrutability in data will mean that there's no high risk of damaging a professional license by claiming it's unclear, so there's no shortage of Mitofsy proteges. So the question seems to be for Kerry, does he wish to bet his entire career and perhaps the Party on this battle right here, right now? And he declined, "for the good of the country" and himself.

[fearnobush]

29. Focus on Koe and the Blackwell Taft thefts. Here is where the cracks

on at least 08 will open if we nurture them well.

[Time for change]

33. Dupe

[Carolab]

34. You mean your post was a dupe?

I didn't see the article posted elsewhere on this forum.

[Time for change]

50. You mean my commentary on the MJ article?

No, that wasn't a dupe. That was posted on GD.

The dupe was this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x398805#398832, which I meant to post on your other thread, and which I did after erasing this one.

[Carolab]

60. Thx. n/t

[snot]

36. You know, I wouldn't care whether they acknowledged it, IF

they nonetheless took effective ACTION to reduce the risk of theft, acknowledging that whether or not past elections were stolen, these machines make it too easy to do so in the future.

It's hard to understand their omission to act or even acknowledge this risk, however, as anything other than a critical failure.

[sunshinekathy]

57. This may help - Math Proof that ESI's Ohio analysis is invalid

I think that the powers that be in the democratic party have unfortunately relied on the Election Science Institute's analysis of the Ohio exit poll data.

This math proof shows how illogical the hypothesis is that ESI based its entire analysis on.

We're going to release this on Monday.

Does anyone know some phone numbers for press people in Ohio that we/you could call to let them know about this new math logic proof paper that shoots down everthing that Mitofsky and Liddle and ESI have been espousing since June re. the Ohio exit poll data?

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/exit-polls/ESI/ESI-hypothesis-illogical.pdf

[Febble]

59. Well, actually....

I think you got the hypothesis wrong. See your other thread.